Christopher Shays: “Mr. Chairman, the Meehan-Shays substitute bans soft money, and then what we also do is we recognize that the sham issue…”

“Mr. Chairman, the Meehan-Shays substitute bans soft money, and then what we also do is we recognize that the sham issue ads are truly campaign ads, and that is the key point. They are not sham in the sense that they do not have a right to speak, but they are not issue ads, they are campaign ads, and we call them such. One of our provisions is obviously already in existing law. Vote for or vote against it; it makes it a campaign ad. And people get around the sham issue ads by not saying vote for or vote against, but they might as well based on what they say. When they mention the name or show a picture of a candidate by radio or TV, we call them campaign ads; that is true. The fact is, though, that these voter alerts, we do not impact the voter alerts through that process of the picture or the name. The bottom line is, this is an amendment that is an exemption that truly does swallow the rule. It abolishes any attempt whatsoever to deal with sham issue ads. It is a gigantic loophole that is intending to deal with something that is not a problem.”